Jonas Valanciunas FIBA U-19 World Championships Tracking Thread

[Built Ford Tough]

With not much else to talk about, I figured I would make a thread for us to discuss how Valanciunas plays in the U-19 World Championships that are taking place from June 30th to July 10th.

 

Lithuania had their opening game of the tournament today against Croatia and they ended up losing 88-75.

 

Valanciunas had 19 points, 13 rebounds and 5 blocks on 7-17 shooting and 5/6 from the charity stripe in 36 minutes.

 

The next game is tomorrow against Korea.

 

Not sure if there is a way to watch these games online (legally, at least) so I imagine this thread will mostly be box score watching and not much of actual play breakdown, but again, with the lockout putting a halt to most basketball related content, what else is there to talk about?

 

PS: Canada played Korea today and won 109-94. They don't have the most talented team that they could've had (no Kabongo, Birch or Wiljter), but it is still nice to see them win, even if it was against Korea. Sim Bhullar (7'4 center) had 24 points and 24 boards on 9/19 shooting to lead Canada.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Built Ford Tough

[Real Deal]

If there are links to the games, you can post those. I just have to make sure we don't have actual topics promoting sites that broadcast games.

[Inspector]

If there are links to the games, you can post those. I just have to make sure we don't have actual topics promoting sites that broadcast games.

[Built Ford Tough]

Just a correction on my previous post, Bhullar had 24 points and 14 rebounds against Korea, not 24.

 

Anyways, have two more updates.

 

Yesterday against Korea Valanciunas had 25 points, 17 rebounds and 2 blocks on 11/11 shooting in 19 minutes. He had 17 points and 11 boards after the 1st quarter, but the game was out of reach already by that point so Val didn't really play much more. Also worth noting that the Korean center was like 6'7 and vastly outmatched against a guy of Valanciunas' size and skill.

 

Today against Canada he had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks on 5/6 shooting in 14 minutes. Unfortunately, his foul troubles came to a head in this game as he fouled out in only 14 minutes. He has around 9/7/2 in the first quarter, but then he started getting into serious foul trouble. He was dominating Sim Bhullar and if he was able to stay on the floor it sounds like he would've put up another Korea-esque game based on the way he started the game and how productive he was when he was on the floor.

 

He is now averaging roughly 20 points, 13 rebounds and 4 clocks in 23 minutes on 68% shooting and 80% from the stripe for the tournament.

[Inspector]

The Bhullar twins? I remember them! I remember hearing how fat one of them was. They're very tall though, I'm afraid they'll be the next Sun Ming Ming phenomenon though.

[Check my Stats]

Glad to see he is heads above the competition, as he should be.

[Built Ford Tough]

The Bhullar twins? I remember them! I remember hearing how fat one of them was. They're very tall though, I'm afraid they'll be the next Sun Ming Ming phenomenon though.

 

I think only Sim is playing, and yeah, he is a big boy. He is 7'4 and about 315-320 pounds. He is in terrible shape, though and doesn't really have much going for him other than being huge. I wouldn't ever expect to see him playing in the NBA.

 

Valanciunas has 18 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks on 6/14 shooting and 6/7 from the free throw line in 34 minutes today. Lithuania won 71-54 over Serbia.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but from what I have read Valanciunas was facing a lot of double teams and even saw some triple teams which may be a reason for his low shooting percentage as he is usually very efficient. All of the focus seemed to be keeping Val out of the paint and forcing him into mid range jumpers. On the bright side, he only had 2 fouls in the 34 minutes that he played, and both of them were on the offensive end so that is nice to see considering per 36 minutes he has been averaging over 6 fouls a game. He also had a spurt of 7 straight points in the 4th quarter to really put the game out of reach, which is great to see him showing some killer instinct like that.

 

Lithuania plays the United States tomorrow at, I believe, 7:30 EST time. I'm not positive about the time, but the game should be shown at this link:

 

http://www.lrytas.lt/videonews/live/

 

It should be a good game, especially the Patric Young/Valanciunas matchup. After the USA/Lithuania friendly Patric Young pretty much called Valanciunas overrated and saying that he isn't a lottery pick calibre player. He made comments about how the only reason he had a good game against him was because the refs were giving him every call.

 

The funny thing is that if anybody has proven that they are not worthy of a lottery pick in this tournament, it has been Patric Young. He has been outplayed by pretty much every big man that he has gone up against in this tournament. Hopefully Val has a great game and shuts Young up, but considering how much shit he talked after their first game in which he was absolutely dominated, I doubt that will happen.

[Built Ford Tough]

Great game for Valanciunas today against the United States.

 

They (Liithuania) were missing their starting point guard and 2nd best player, but they managed to make it a very close game, eventually losing by 2 points in OT off of a Jeremy Lamb turnaround from about 8 feet with 1.5 seconds left. He finished the game with 30 points, 15 rebounds and 4 blocks on 11-20 shooting and 8-10 from the FT line in 37 minutes. He also held Patric Young to just 15 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block.

 

Lithuania were down by as much as 18 points, including a 10 point defecit at halftime, but apperantly Jonas went nuts in the 2nd half and carried them to what they thought was a last second win in regulation after he had a putback dunk that would've put Lithuania up by 2 with only a second or so left, but it was called goaltending. Great game from him either way, though. He really put his team on his back in the 2nd half.

 

He is now the leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker in the tournament with 21.4 ppg, 13.4 rpg and 3.6 bpg. The most impressive thing about all of this is that he is doign it in only 28 minutes a game. He is definitely having a fantastic tournament.

 

 

A couple of tweets from Givony about Valanciunas:

 

DraftExpress Jonathan Givony

Valanciunas completely shutting down the paint. Hedging, recovering, moving his feet, using his 7-5 wingspan perfectly. Lithuania up 101-95.

 

DraftExpress Jonathan Givony

Elated. RT @zacharyfleming: should raptors fans be happy or worried about big V? A lot of us were pretty distraught when he was selected.

 

 

Another tweet showing Valanciunas' taking the loss really hard:

 

DrewEbanks HoopsGuru

Hewitt also went on to say about Valanciunas: "After the game, he was so upset he was crying and punching walls" 30pts 15rebs 4blks @Raptors

 

 

Praise from the American coach:

 

DrewEbanks HoopsGuru

U.S. coach Paul Hewitt likes Jonas Valanciunas: ``He’s the real deal. I love his competitiveness. He went Rambo on us in the second half.”

[Built Ford Tough]

Lithuania picked up another win today against the team from Egypt. They were in control for pretty much the entire game and ended up winning by 19 points, so Valanciunas didn't really play that much but he still managed to put up 17 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks on 4/7 shooting and 9/10 from the line in 24 minutes.

 

The Americans lost to Croatia today as well, which means that it is likely we will see a Lithuania/USA matchup in the semi-finals, assuming there aren't any upsets int he quarters.

[Built Ford Tough]

He had a monster game today against the Polish team.

 

26 points, 24 rebounds, 6 blocks and 3 assists on 8/19 FG and 10/11 from the free throw line in 36 minutes.

 

From what I read, he could've easily had another 6 points as well as he missed some really easy shots around the rim that he usually would make, but even with those misses, it was still a monster game for Valanciunas.

 

They won 87-75 as well, but we won't see a rematch with the USA team in the semis as they lost to Russia today. Lithania plays the Russians tomorrow for a spot in the Gold Medal game on Sunday. The other semi matchup is Serbia vs. Argentina.

[Built Ford Tough]

In the Gold Medal game today against the Serbian team, Valanciunas put up 36 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks and 3 steals to lead the Lithuanian team to an 85-67 win.

 

Valanciunas was named to the All-Star team as well as taking home MVP. With this gold medal, Valanciunas has now led the Lithanian's to U16, U18 and U19 gold. He also won tournament MVP each time.

 

He finished the tournament with 23 ppg, 14 rpg and 3.2 bpg, all of which were tournament highs. He also led the tourny with 7 double-doubles and he was 2nd in FG% (Canada's Dyshawn Pierre led in this catagory).

 

Obviously he is on a different level than the vast majority of the players in the tournament, but it is still definitely nice to see him put on the dominant performances that he did throughout this tournament.

[YugoRocketsFan]

Serbia got to the final, not bad.

[Built Ford Tough]

Here are Valanciunas' highlights from the finals.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCMXxQGhGzQ&feature=player_embedded